Julian Assange, 47, (03.07.71) has today, Thursday 11 April, been arrested by officers from the Met Police (MPS) at the Embassy of Ecuador, Hans Crescent, SW1 on a warrant issued by Westminster Magistrates' Court on 29 June 2012, for failing to surrender to the court.

The MPS had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster Magistrates' Court, and was invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government's withdrawal of asylum.

He has been taken into custody at a central London police station where he will remain, before being presented before Westminster Magistrates' Court as soon as is possible.

This was inevitable.

Ecuador has a new government that asked to receive a loan from the International Monetary Fund. The U.S. conditioned its agreement to the loan on the lifting of the asylum for Assange which the previous Ecuadorian government had granted to him.

After some legal hustle in the Britain, which will take time, Assange will likely be extradited to the United States where the Justice Department holds at least one warrant against him.

Wikileaks was the media outlet for several embarrassing leaks of secret U.S. government papers. It is unclear for which of these publications the Justice Department will indict him.

But the case against Assange is not about justice. His publication of state secrets was obviously an act of journalism and free speech. But the deep state was embarrassed and demands revenge.

The best Assange can hope for, after the judicial process ran its course, is a pardon by the president of the United States.

@401-402 donkeytale.. i agree with you and think everything you say is valid.. people can't be supportive of assange and also supportive of trump... i am not trying to confuse matters, but for me trump has been good is showing just how fucked up the usa is.. and he has helped bring it closer to it's own demise - which i believe is a very good thing... so, in this regard i am in favour of trump!! but aside from that - i agree with you.. now, maybe clinton would have brought about the destruction of the usa and shown just how vacuous the usa is quicker... maybe.. it is possible.. not being an american, i tend to not think about american politicians too much.. it makes me nauseous! clearly if one is for assange, they can't be for trump too makes sense...

what the usa has done to manning is a travesty, in keeping with the shit hole usa... some things are consistent..

Of course since Citizens United the way elections and candidates are bought is through unlimited donations, including corporate donations to poliitical parties.

I don't think you understand what Citizens United was about:

The United States Supreme Court held (5–4) on January 21, 2010, that the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for communications by nonprofit corporations, for-profit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.

It was nothing to do with corporate donations to political parties or contributions to candidates campaign funds, it was that corporations have some of the same constitutional rights as individuals. The case did not affect the federal ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidate campaigns or political parties.

As a longtime lurker on this site I just want to say that the smear tactics being used against Glenn Greenwald and Assange himself are troubling.

To the smear-mongers, I want to say: "Do you really think that the majority of us have no critical sense whatever and believe anything we read from the pen of Glenn Greenwald, or any other journalist or pundit, for that matter? And that, conversely, all it takes is the insinuation that 'Wikileaks was a CIA operation from the start' or that 'Greenwald has sold out and lives in the lap of luxury' for us to cease following up the information that the one and the other have revealed... and applying our powers of critical thinking to that information? As indeed we do to any piece of 'news' we receive from the corporate/national press (I had ARTE in mind when I wrote 'national')... or from a commenter on this blog?"